Nine Women

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I’ve compared my current state of mind to that of air traffic control. The items in my head are the planes. Some can circle the airport for a week or two, plenty of fuel, all the passengers asleep, no cause for concern, but they are there, on the edge, emitting the occasional beep. The rest are in a holding pattern, waiting their turn, but being attended to, all in good time.

Some, however, require an emergency landing.

I’m off to Sweden with fellow blogger Wendy Williams on Thursday, along with other SCI artists. I’m not going to go into the ways it came about… Wendy has done that in her blog:

https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/my-work-reasons-behind-it-and-what-happens-to-it

But anyway… I sent ALL my bras to Debra in Jamestown for the exhibition with Jodi Hopper she is curating. This was a mistake, in hindsight, because it has meant I have put myself under unnecessary pressure to work faster to make sure I have at least one bra to take to Stockholm. Oh well… Too late now! I have one bra finished, but not yet wired for display. I abandoned it because I had another idea I wanted to start. The second idea is more suitable for ArtMobile, but the chances of me finishing it and getting it wired are slim. The sensible path would be to wire up bra no1, then finish bra no2 if I have time left, or even take it with me unfinished!

I’m really looking forward to going, but with some trepidation. I have said I will perform one of my songs, unaccompanied, for the event. This is akin to cliff jumping without a parachute. I’ve never performed like this before. I’m half hoping none of the audience speak English at all, so that I can make it all up if I go wrong. We have also been asked to talk on film about our work.

I’m trying not to think about it too much, but the dodgy knee could be a hindrance to touristy proceedings. It’s doing really well, thanks to intense physio, but I need to rest for a couple of days before I go. Hmmmm…. Looks like Tuesday and Wednesday will be spent leg up, sewing then!

The day after I get back, Franny Swann is coming to stay. She’s bringing my greatcoat back, and I shall be giving her a whistle stop tour of Art Birmingham.

I’m really looking forward to this, I don’t often get the chance to show off the city that I love. I might have to invite her back to do the bits we don’t have time for!

Then I have about a week of undecided days… I have things to do, but can pick at them in a leisurely fashion… The emergency planes will have been landed safely, I will have started picking my way through those in the holding pattern, and I’ll be able to breathe a while.

Then it all starts all over again…. But that will do for now!

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Another studio session… doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?

A bar has opened at the other end of Birdcage Walk. It is very busy, good for them! Although I am rather disturbed by the sign in pretend Gaelic script (you know, the As and Ts are a bit wonky, and there are shamrocks sprinkled liberally about the signage) declaring “Bus Workers 10% Discount!”

It hadn’t occurred to me when it was being refurbished that this may have an impact on recording, or how we felt about being there late at night.

Sunday night is Karaoke Night!

I was convinced it was an Elton only affair, but Dan assured me he had during the evening, tuned into the inevitable murdering of Robbie’s Angels. The confident but drunkenly off key renditions increased in volume, as the door opened to let more singers in, and more smokers out.

As you may be aware, for some of my recordings, this is like gold! I love to hear the sounds of the town around me as I sing. Sometimes these are exaggerated, and sometimes they are cut, minimised, or digitally altered and used. Sometimes they are a pain in the bum and we have to keep rolling and do it again!

Sunday night we revisited “The Gate” – a song we recorded right at the beginning of January. Strangely, I can sing better now, my delivery is more nuanced, I can get to places I couldn’t before, so we are going to re-record my vocal. We have also got into the swing of things now, so we know how these songs should feel, so we are going to alter a few things, strip a few things out, and add in some strings.

We also recorded “Distracted” – a song about sex. It was originally an exercise set by Dan in the Songwriting Circle. My friend Nicki Kelly and I decided, as the only women, we should definitely write sex songs from the woman’s point of view. Nicki’s song was brilliant, a definite celebration of the joy of sex. Mine was more a serial killer/obsessive stalker sort of take on the whole thing – rather worrying really –  but there you go. I decided though, in this project, a song about sex was a definite necessity, so I dusted off the original Garageband file this weekend, for us to have a go at doing properly, as this had only taken me a couple of hours to put together for a laugh.

I handed the file to Dan, and toddled off to go to the loo, put the kettle on, open the biscuits, that sort of thing. When I got back, Dan had stripped the file down to see what it was made of. He was listening to my track of rather blatant heavy breathing… looked up at me and said “You’re a fucking weirdo, e!”

From that point on, the evening went swimmingly, and the new recording sounds brilliant. But I think you can tell, on the recording, there are a couple of moments when I am on the edge of losing it and starting to laugh.

I am fascinated by the different ways people write songs, and being in the Circle gives me a chance to see this in action. I sometimes am astonished by the methods people use to get from A to B, from verse to chorus, totally bamboozled by their path!

Have just listened to “Same Tune, Different Song” on BBC R4 here’s the link, I don’t know how long it will be available for:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mrptd

I can’t conceive of being given a fully formed tune to shoehorn the words into. For me, it is always the words that come first. There isn’t usually a chorus, and sometimes it doesn’t even rhyme. Then a bit of a phrase of melody will be forced from me after much groaning and experimentation. Once I have a few words attached to a melody, I’m on a roll then, and the rest generally flows. Once I have my words to a tune of sorts, I then get someone – at this point generally Dan or Dave Sutherland to take it and sort it out… then it will be assigned a key, chords, and from that point it becomes a more structured thing. This is my process. I am becoming more able, more confident in many of these stages, but at the age of 54 I will never be able to afford the time to learn fast enough to play an instrument well enough to do the crucial bit in the middle on my own. I am resigned, even happy about this now I have decided NOT to learn an instrument. My thing is making sounds, recording sounds, manipulating sounds so that I can pretend they are music. I can sing layers of vocals and manipulate them digitally. A few of these songs rely totally on my voice. Some on my voice and built loops from recorded sounds… that’s my thing… besides which, guitars never seem to come in the right cup size.

It’s more that half way to the date when I should have a finished installation, and we are more than half way through the songs, so I’ve decided to unleash another recording on the world, another sneak preview. This isn’t a finished recording, but that sketch/plan/design we take into the studio to work from.

This is how it got to this point… I wrote the words, there aren’t many. I had a melody in my head* for the first couple of lines, then sang them to Dan, who played them on the guitar, then we built it from that, recording each bit as we went. When it was a complete song, short, but complete, I decided to send it to Dave, as it would sound great with mandolin instead of guitar. For me this is a cheery song – I don’t write many of those. After a bit of sound file emailing, Dave came up the goods… the really goods!

So, yesterday, we recorded my vocal (bit dodgy) over the mandolin, small issues of delivery were discussed, a little bit of mandolin was snipped from the middle and copied as an intro, and Dan played a little bass over the bridge. This is the perfect recipe now, all the ingredients are there… I’ll book Dave in for a studio session and we will iron out the lumps and bumps and then this one will be my favourite….

SOMEONE
Lyrics: Elena Thomas
Music: Elena Thomas and Dan Whitehouse

*I’ve come back in to edit this, on listening to bits and pieces of old recordings, I discover the bit of melody in my head had been put there during a session with Nicki Kelly, who deserves a credit for it!

Vocal: Elena Thomas
Mandolin: Dave Sutherland
Bass: Dan Whitehouse

https://soundcloud.com/elena-thomas/someone-12-04-15-demo/s-pBgU6

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The effects of the contents in the previous two posts will undoubtedly rumble on… in and out of consciousness as and when required, and occasionally and uncomfortably when not. So I’ll let it lie…

A more frequent visitor to my real art world life is indecision. What should I do “for the best”?
Make decisions, that is what is best. I know it’s only April, and the exhibition is July, but that really isn’t very far off…

Should a PV be on a Friday or a Saturday night?

Wine or tea?

Nuts or cake?

Is my home made cake a bigger draw than a free glass of plonk?

There are those among prospective visitors who would, if it was polite, demand my cake.

There are those for whom wine at a PV is a tongue-loosening essential ingredient.

Shall I perform? (yes, one decision made)

How many songs?

Who with?

Do I need a bass player?

Does it have to be Dave?

So do I move the date in order to get Dave?

(Dave “Ubiquitous” Sutherland, so named because he is able to take up a variety of instruments and figure out what the hell I am singing, and add so much to a melody I have just hummed to him. He is so far, on three of the recordings, and now I know he also has a mandolin, there will be at least one more)

Can I be bothered rehearsing with a new bass player, among the inevitable feelings of disloyalty? (no, another decision made)

What time should I start?

What time should I finish?

Dan will be there, so will it be ok just with Dan, and pick a set accordingly? (yes… maybe…. decision nearly made)

How shall I hang the work? How should I organise the downstairs gallery? Whose work can I hang there and how?

Should it be only my work? The drawings? (yes, probably… another thing nearly decided)

How will I play the recordings?

Should I have headphones set up at the PV? Just speakers?

Should I get someone downstairs to do refreshments, while I ponse about upstairs?

Should there be comfy seats? (because I have a bad knee, I’m always on the lookout for a comfy seat at a PV)

Should I cover the window?

Move the paper chest?

What shall I wear?

What should I do with my fucking bird’s nest hair? (sing the song written for it and pretend it looks like this on purpose) (another decision made)

Which image should I use for the postcards and posters?

Should I just go for pink?

Should I avoid pink like the plague?

What font should I use? (American Typewriter as always? Probably yes… another decision made)

So these, and believe me, dozens more questions mill about my head.

In delicate moments, I am convinced that a half hour difference in opening time, a choice between peanuts or cashews, cake or wine, this song or that song… that these things will prevent the perfect combination of people from attending.

This is not the case is it?

I just need to decide.

The people that want to come will come if they can.

I shall tell as many people as possible, in as many ways as I can think of. The rest is up to them.

Some decisions I have to make quickly, in order to get the printing done (pink/not pink… time…date)

Others can wait.

Other decisions have to be made before the next decisions can be made.

At the moment I’m thinking:

Friday night PV. (With wine, because that’s so other people…and honey roast peanuts, because it gives me an excuse to buy them, but not eat the whole big bag myself.)

Followed by Saturday Open Studio (with tea and cake, because it is so very me)

Maybe three songs, so I don’t get too stressed.

Just Dan, because he stops me feeling stressed, knows me well, and is able to musically pick me up if it all goes horribly wrong, and lead me back to the right place…and probably even sing it all for me if I pass out, or my lips stick to my teeth and my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

Actually… writing these lists has helped.

Blog = comfort blanket.

Bloody Bo Jones… right again dammit!

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Real art world living, as opposed to do what you want art world living, or art school living…

If I was still in an educational establishment I would be working towards a resolution of some sort for a predetermined assessment point. If I was doing what I want, there would be no assessment, probably no sort of resolution, and no deadlines.
Each of these have their pros and cons. But what I have is real art world living. I don’t necessarily need a total resolution of ideas, but need something presentable for the deadline, the work for which was largely determined a year before the exhibition opens. The work has moved on, ideas have developed more than I anticipated, but I am obliged to meet the deadline with pretty much what was promised. Which of course, I will do…. Pushing at the edges, hinting at what is to come next. But I do have a fear of ACE demanding their money back after I’ve spent it!

What you need for real life art world living is a time machine, so you can go back and book three years in advance the gallery space required when your project is at just the right point. Also, because I am working on a music element that I am contemplating releasing as a cd, that works to a completely different timetable to allow for mastering, reproduction, art work design and printing, marketing and publicity.

I am in a permanent state of confusion about where I am in various processes and time frames.

Then I throw Bo into the mix, and although I know that eventually all will become clear, at the moment, it is all decidedly foggy!

Bo’s work is done using secret recipes of a wide variety of apps and software. This is what makes his work so different to anyone else’s. He revels in either the obscure, old apps on first release iPads, or obscure new apps, released yesterday.

Part of the nine women project involves the drawings, the physical or digital layering and altering of them, and a fair bit of design work for posters, flyers etc. After Bo’s instruction yesterday, and my downloading of about 30 apps all in one go, I suspect once I’ve got to grips with my time machine, I will be spending inordinate amounts of time working with these, to see what I can come up with. Yesterday’s play just piqued my interest, sparked inspiration.

We also discussed my working practices and style. Are some of the curatorial choices made out of habit, or loyalty to a “style” of practice? I repeat, in practice, in design, in craft, and presentation. In my head, that’s kind of the point…also there is an argument to be made for continuity. I do know that Bo asks me stuff either to deliberately provoke, or in his words, piss me off. He does this in part for his own amusement, but I also know he does it because he likes me, and although he might not always “like” the work, he respects it, and where it comes from. This is why I trust and value his opinion.

We have talked of conviction… Some aspects of the work he says I don’t sound confident of, that I’m not selling it. I have yet to work out if this is the case, or whether it’s just him that has that effect on me! Ha! When I’ve made the decisions, I’ll let you know. I actually think it’s ok to not be totally sure, all of the time, but to put it out there anyway, to see what happens.

We spoke of the different influences on my work now. It’s true… I have taken a different road. I don’t know if it is merely a detour, a tangent, or is a permanent re-route….Musicians have a different outlook on things, some things we have in common, some we don’t. But in my experience, the musicians have a better businesslike handle on the marketing and publicity than most visual artists I know. I can take from this and adapt to my own world quite easily I think…. recent discussions suggested the extreme of this could, if not guarded against, tend towards the “Get some bird with her baps out and get the telly in!” (Black Country accent not compulsory), rather than relying on the strength of the work, or the nature of the artist.

Bo said the blog was incoherent… Well of course it is! I am in a constant state of confusion that the inability to time travel causes, and his questions add to that! The blog is where I sort it all out. By writing it, recording my reading of it now, and revisiting occasionally…. I am sporadically coherent enough to be able to knit the fog into a smart little jumper to wear while time travelling.
The biggest thing, I suppose, is whether I feel I am being true to myself.
Well Mr Jones, I may be an occasionally unconfident self-doubting woman, a musical nomad, with funding, a brief, a deadline and loads-of-work-still-left-to-do….
But, yes. I do.

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I have spent the day in the studio with Bo Jones.
Those of you that have been reading my blog a while, or who know us, will know what a trial this has been.

He is a pain in the bum to be frank.

But, as I have said before, he is the only one I trust to ask the tricky questions. He is the one that isn’t bothered about upsetting me. He insists on his questions being answered, and laughs at me while I fluff about for an answer.

He often makes me feel stupid and complacent and lazy.

A visitation from Bo is like being artistically poked with a very sharp stick.

He also said he could probably write this blog post for me, because he knows exactly what I will write! Smart Arse…. but yes, he probably can. That’s the thing about smart arses, they are usually right.

So… questions to ask then:

• How are the bras related to the songs?
• Are the bras or songs not strong enough on their own?
• Why nine bras? wouldn’t three/six/seven/or more likely one say the same?
• Is “nine” just an affectation? (oh I expect so)
• Am I happy with that to be the case even if I end up choosing say five bras and seven songs?
• I said I wanted all the songs done, and all the bras made, and then I would go through a selection process. Trouble is, by committing myself to this nine women concept, has that selection, in a sense, already been made?
• Is that Ok?
• Am I happy for that to be the case, at least for the July show in Dudley?
• The reason this project carries on after the July show is so that I can continue to explore it, show it in different ways. Make some adjustments and developments.
• How am I avoiding tautology? (I don’t think I am avoiding it!) (am I bothered?) (should I be?)

Bo likes the drawings.

The drawings were originally almost like a documentary evidence sort of thing, but I like them too. He’s the second person this week to say they are architectural/topographical…. how do they relate to the songs? Or to the altered, more sculptural bras? I think they deserve some sort of place here… but I’m not sure. Also, the drawings are saleable. This is no small consideration.

I suspect, what I have – or will – end up with are actually three lots of work, each that are able to stand alone. My question will be then, either before or after July will be how do I do that? I could do with some experienced curators etc to come look at this and talk to me about it.
(or I could really punish myself and ask Bo back)

My initial reaction, is to do the show as I planned. (“Cop out!” shouts Bo.) Nine bras, nine songs. Get them up in the space. Invite discussion and critique. Record this all, then spend August re-evaluating what I have, so that by the end of 2015, I have indeed moved on. What I’m thinking is that changing the plan before July is getting ahead of myself. At the moment, I don’t have anything concrete to review or evaluate.

I shall be interested to hear what Debra says about how the work in the combination of garment and song, is received in New York.

I acknowledged that the pressure is on when you get funding, to provide what you have said you will provide.

Don’t worry Arts Council, you will. Actually you have already got more for your money than promised. I’m getting more out of it than expected too.

My biggest ambition for this year though, is that I start 2016 in a different place. That I will have skills I didn’t have before, I will have experience I didn’t have before, and that I see a way forward.

I hope to god Bo or I don’t ever say anything that upsets us, and we stop being friends, because actually I have got more out of today than I have working and thinking on my own for the last couple of months.

He also said this blog has become my comfort blanket. Don’t care.

Over the next few weeks while I process all of this, I expect there will be doubts about what I’ve done so far, and where I’m headed. This is actually a good thing, because when it has all been thought about, I will come out of the other end with a fairer and firmer view of what I’m doing.

My brain is fizzing, and it hurts. I’m off home to lie down in a darkened room.

Did I miss anything out, Bo?